


Ultimate Fear

by thegreymoon



Category: Tekken
Genre: Crack, Incest, M/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 10:22:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1547237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreymoon/pseuds/thegreymoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kazuya discovers a taste for fine literature and Lee is too busy to look deeper at what really lies behind this newfound passion. The most ridiculous of fights ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merci](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merci/gifts).



> Written for Merci for a K/L fic exchange, based on her prompt ‘a great fear’. Merci said that while there was some room for angst, she preferred ‘upbeat and happy stories’ and to be ‘smothered in fluff’! Now, the only way I could get even remotely close to fluff with this pairing was to put the fic in some post-Tekken scenario that takes place after Kazuya and Lee have worked out their differences and are finally living happily ever after. I’m not sure that this really qualifies as either happy or upbeat, but I do hope that I at least got the fluff down.

He was woken by a flash of that weird clarity that sometimes comes in a dream; detached from reality but eerily lucid at the same time. He felt disembodied, yet aware- the inside of him turned out as he lingered, naked and vulnerable in a great emptiness that stretched out forever. He was cold and confused, and most importantly, alone. The silence, the solitude yawned around him like a chasm and he knew at once that Lee was not with him. For the briefest of moments, the connection between them, the subconscious thread that linked them together and made him aware of Lee’s presence was gone. The shock of it shook him to the core and terrified, he bolted upright in bed.  
  
Panicked, he looked to his side and to his infinite relief, he saw that Lee was there, sleeping peacefully and close enough to touch. Reality reaffirmed itself and Kazuya let out the breath he was holding. His chest hurt from the strain and it took him long minutes to pull himself together. He was bathed in sweat, but he shivered violently in the shockingly frigid air. Annoyed, he realised that he was naked and pushed out to the very edge of the bed. Lee had stolen all the covers and now lay comfortably in a warm cocoon right in the middle, diagonally positioned and taking up enough space for two people twice his size. The only thing Kazuya could see under the dark mound was the top of his silver head, but he could tell from his even breath and the easy stillness that lingered about him that his deep, all-consuming slumber was undisturbed. This comforted him and he reached deep inside, looking for that bond that was elusive and surreal, unexplainable, but there. He could feel the even rhythm of Lee’s heartbeat as if there was an invisible cord strung tight between them; it soothed him and calmed his own frantic pulse.  
  
What the fuck was that horrible dream? He didn’t have them often, much less when they were so vivid and clear. Or unclear. When he tried to reconstruct it, he found nothing there. It was emptiness he had dreamed of.  
  
A soft rustling caught his attention and he looked down. The sliding door leading out to the veranda was open. The weather was changing and the wind billowed inside, tossing the curtain and chasing dry leaves over the immaculately lacquered floor.  
  
Kazuya ran his fingers through his hair to clear thoughts and shook himself into action, rising as quietly as he could and padding down the low stairs into the adjoining sitting area to close the open door. There was a tiny click as the frame locked into place and the room suddenly became completely quiet. He went very still, expecting the palpable change in atmosphere to wake his brother up and when that didn’t happen, he breathed out slowly in relief.  
  
What would he say if Lee was to sit up, look straight at him and ask what was wrong? How could he explain the state he was in? Lee would see how shaken he was moment the moment he laid eyes on him and he felt ridiculous for even being in this situation.  
  
Is this what it was like for Lee too?  
  
Nightmares were his area of expertise, but Kazuya had no idea, because they never talked about it. He had never really recovered from the living hell that had dumped him in the middle of Heihachi’s household and half a century later, he would still wake up screaming next to him. Things would be good for months and then something would trigger him and start the cycle anew. Some of the episodes were brief, but others were… not. The worst of them would leave him afraid to sleep at all and it would go on and on until he was half insane from exhaustion. When that happened, there was nothing Kazuya could do except watch him fall apart, unravel completely, and then hold him as he sobbed and shivered for hours.  
  
The last crisis had been so long ago, he had almost begun to hope it would not recur. Finally, both of them were beginning to understand the meaning of peace and Kazuya should have known that it was too good to be true.  
  
Slowly, his breathing evened out and he looked around, listening carefully for any sign of disturbance in the deep, deep silence that surrounded Lee’s beach home. He closed his eyes and reached out with his other senses. He felt everything, every warm, pulsing sign of life. Various night creatures scurried around the estate, hurrying, stalking, sneaking, all lost in the urgencies of their little worlds and unconcerned by the human habitat in their vicinity. Larger and slower, he felt each one of Lee’s staff inside the house, most of them asleep in their beds at this ungodly hour, except for two extremely vigorous entities in the lower quarters. He could even tell who they were- a maid and one of the night guards, but they were very much occupied with each other and not up to anything that would concern him. He would fire them both tomorrow- the man for dallying when he was supposed to be on duty and the woman for letting him do it on the kitchen floor.  
  
Disgusting.  
  
He would have to have the entire area disinfected before he let them prepare his food in there again.  
  
The security outside seemed more alert, but they too were calm. He sensed nothing, no strangers, no intruders and no unwanted presences. Everything felt normal, yet something had woken him up. He opened his eyes looked in his brother’s direction again. Lee’s instincts were uncanny; a threat would not have failed to wake him up, but there he was- quiet, warm and comfortable under his little mound of blankets and that was as sure a sign as any that there was no immediate danger. Lee rarely slept well and when he did, it was always only when things were good.  
  
He slowly went up again and sat on the edge of the bed. What was he supposed to do now? Go back to sleep?  
  
Impossible.  
  
There had to be a reason for this… this… What was it? An ominous word welled to the forefront of his mind and Kazuya hesitated before it, but it would not be denied.  
  
A warning.  
  
He turned it over and over in his head. A warning of what?  
  
Lee shifted and murmured something in his sleep.  
  
Of losing him?  
  
Kazuya shuddered. He knew it was irrational, but pangs of panic were already trying to claw their way out. Even though he sat only a foot away from Lee’s little burrow, a vast distance seemed to have opened up between them and the need to close it became unbearable.  
  
He lifted the covers and crawled under them. Lee moaned and sunk into the mattress to escape the rush of cool air. He didn’t quite wake up as Kazuya put his arms around him and drew him close, but he grumbled a sleepy, incoherent protest into the pillow. Kazuya’s lip curled at the small vengeance and briefly, he considered waking him.  
  
His cock seemed to like the idea.  
  
All of this was probably Lee’s fault anyway. He had stayed up late on his fucking phone and Kazuya had gone to sleep without him. It must have been long past midnight by the time he had sneaked into bed.  
  
And left the veranda door open.  
  
He deserved to be woken up just for that, but he slept so deeply, which was nothing but sheer exhaustion. Kazuya decided to let him rest. There were only a few more hours left until morning and he could wait. He pushed Lee’s hair aside and kissed the back of his neck. Lee squirmed and murmured his name. Kazuya always waited for him to call for someone else, dreading it, knowing it would never happen yet half-expecting it at the same time. It was the curse within him; whispering, eating him alive with doubt- but there was no other name for Lee to call, because in spite of all the people he’d fucked, he had never shared a bed with any of them. Nobody else had ever been able to touch him, kiss him, be this close to him as he slept. There was nothing and no one between them.  
  
A lick of triumph curled in Kazuya’s belly and even the Devil inside had no choice but to be quiet.  
  
What was it that Lee did when he couldn’t sleep? He would snuggle close and hide against him. Perhaps it would work for him too? Lee was solid and warm in his arms. The cold, the emptiness was just a dream. If he held him tight, he would not be able to sneak off without waking him. Kazuya buried his nose in the loose, messy hair. It was soft and it smelled so good.  
  
Maybe going back to sleep wouldn’t be so hard after all.  
  
Lose him? How could he lose him? He would never let him go.


	2. Restraint

“Kazuya!” Lee yelled and slammed the door.  
  
No answer.  
  
He looked around the empty hall, deducing which of the many corridors to take first. Kazuya was sulking, which meant that he was hiding, but probably not trying too hard. The very fact that he had chosen to return to the house told him that he wanted to be found. He wanted a fight, a confrontation, and he was in luck, because Lee was furious.  
  
The day had started out on a promising, if somewhat strange note. He had woken up to Kazuya’s hands, to his lips, to his tongue, which was never a bad thing in and of itself, but this time, it was accompanied by an odd mood that he’d been slow to pick up on. Sleepy, disoriented, he’d found his hips pinned to the mattress and his not entirely serious attempts to squirm away were met with a disproportionately increased need to hold him down. Kazuya had always been a demanding lover, but there were layers to the vehemence with which his needs manifested themselves. The dark side of the spectrum didn’t surface as often as it did before, but when it did, it was always the little things that brought it on; the unexpected, mundane nonsense that Lee had no control over. He would never see it coming, just like he didn’t see it now.  
  
Admittedly, answering the phone in the middle of foreplay was never a good idea, but that morning, it had been disastrous.  In retrospect, Lee realised that he should have known better than to do it, but what choice did he have? He was only one day away from flying out to London! There were not many occasions on which he would interrupt such an aspiring prelude to sex, especially not when Kazuya was in one of his tempers, but a major conference on the verge of a pivotal inter-continental business deal was definitely one of them.  
  
Kazuya hadn’t seen things his way. Infuriated, he’d stormed off into the shower by himself and by the time Lee had hung up, he was already gone.  
  
Driving to the headquarters in separate cars was a bad thing, a portent of disaster if there had ever been one. Lee was expecting trouble when he arrived and he didn’t have to look far to find it. The relief upon learning that his brother was already there had lasted only as long as the elevator ride to the top floor. There, he’d found his personal assistant, his secretary and the receptionist huddled together- all three of them in tears. He didn’t even need to ask what had happened.  
  
Comforting the three traumatised women he desperately needed to pull off the impending board meeting took not only skill, but also time. First, the meeting was delayed, but in the end, it was definitely postponed because once he’d gotten everyone to calm down and do their fucking job, he’d discovered that Kazuya was nowhere to be found. Satisfied with the chaos he’d caused, he’d taken off and left Lee to deal with the mess on his own and Lee had tried, he really had, only to discover that he hadn’t even signed the paperwork they needed to proceed- the paperwork that he had personally brought it to him days ago and underlined several times over how important it was that they had it on time!  
  
“Ah, there you are!”  
  
Kazuya sat on top of the white stairway leading down into the garden with his back turned towards him. His hair was down and in spite of the frigid wind, he was barefoot and wearing only gi pants. Clearly, he had no intention of going back to the office and seemed to be… reading a book?  
  
“Kazuya!” Lee said. “What are you doing here? Why weren’t you at the meeting?”  
  
Kazuya shrugged, not even bothering do turn around. “Didn’t feel like it,” he grumbled.  
  
“You didn’t…” Lee began sharply, but then he breathed in deeply and counted to ten in order to halt the mounting rage. “You do realise that we have only hours left until the deadline, don’t you? I need you back at the headquarters!”  
  
“I was there this morning.”  
  
“Well, that is debatable, considering that you barely stayed fifteen minutes and only, might I add, to cause trouble! If you didn’t want to attend the board meeting, you certainly didn’t have to, but you could have at least warned me!”  
  
“I was under the impression that you were too busy for the likes of me,” Kazuya said, not even bothering to hide the bitterness. “I didn’t want to waste any more of your precious time.”  
  
“Is that right?” Lee said, feeling that in spite of his resolution to control his temper, the effort was doomed to fail. “You’ve done nothing but waste my time the whole day long and I have none of it to spare! You know damn well that we can’t proceed without your signature on the contracts and yet there they were, untouched on your desk, right where I’d left them!”  
  
“Hn.”  
  
“Why didn’t you sign the papers, Kazuya?”  
  
“It slipped my mind.”  
  
“Slipped your mind?” Lee felt like he would explode and it took enormous strength of will to compose himself. “Of course, I’d assumed that you would have a reasonable explanation such as this waiting for me, so I brought them here with me. You won’t have any objections to signing them now, will you?”  
  
“I’m busy.”  
  
“Doing what, may I ask?”  
  
Kazuya pointedly buried his nose back in the book.  
  
“You have got to be joking,” Lee said.  
  
“Do you see me laughing?”  
  
“Don’t annoy me, Kazuya,” Lee said. “You will put that thing down before I remember just how angry I was over all the shit you blackmailed me into writing for you in lit class because you were too fucking lazy to read the books yourself!”  
  
“I was not,” Kazuya said. “I read them all.”  
  
“Really? Then how come I was the one doing your homework?”  
  
Kazuya shrugged. “Reading wasn’t the problem. Writing the reports was.”  
  
“Of course,” Lee said. “Because expressing your thoughts in a concise and rational manner in order to communicate them to other people is so hard. How typical of you.”  
  
“You’ve no room to talk, considering that you did such a shitty job of it yourself,” Kazuya replied. “Your understanding of literature is so superficial. I’m shocked I managed to get even passing grades! You’d consistently miss all the nuances! None of your papers had any depth.”  
  
“Oh, and I suppose that you’re reading this one for its deeper meaning too?” Lee said sarcastically.  
  
“It’s really good.”  
  
 “Good? It’s fucking pink!”  
  
“Tsk,” Kazuya replied. “Such prejudice. I expected better from you. Besides, it isn’t pink. Under the right light, it’s almost purple, so you have no point anyway.”  
  
Lee pinched the bridge of his nose in a futile effort to curb a rising headache.  
  
“Kazuya, what did I tell you about terrorising my staff?”  
  
Kazuya sneered. Those annoying wastes of space didn’t know the meaning of terror. Not yet, anyway, but he would make it a point to change that. He could never tell how many of them Lee had click-click-clicking through the building at any given time on their thin, perilously high heels, simply because it was so hard for him to tell them apart. Lee picked them as much for aesthetic as he did for their credentials. Slender, petite, with long legs and shiny hair- they all seemed to have come from the same mould. They were always around, always in their life. Whenever the phone rang at an inopportune time, it was a safe bet that it was one of them. Kazuya hated them all.  
  
“Terrorising is such a strong word,” he said. “I was restraining myself. It’s not my fault they’re easy to intimidate.”  
  
“Were the overturned tables a part of that restraint too?” Lee said. “What’s wrong with you? How can you look at a pretty girl and only think about how to make her cry?”  
  
Kazuya rolled his eyes.  
  
“And to add insult to injury,” Lee went on, “you stole their book! Why did you steal their book, Kazuya?”  
  
“I _confiscated_ it! There’s a difference!”  
  
“Why? For fuck’s sake, _why?_ ”  
  
“Because I fucking pay them to work, not read on the job! And worse yet,” Kazuya’s lip twisted in revulsion, “ _giggle_ about it where I can see them!”  
  
“First of all, they are my employees, not yours,” Lee corrected, “which means that I am the one paying them, not you. Second, if my facts are correct and they usually are, they were on their lunch break, which means that they committed the grievous sin of having fun in their own free time! People don’t enjoy themselves as a personal offence at you!”  
  
“Hn,” Kazuya grunted and declined to comment.  
  
“Kazuya,” Lee said icily. “You will give that book back.”  
  
“I can’t do that.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“I like it. I want to keep it.”  
  
“Why don’t you get your own?”  
  
“I already started reading this one.”  
  
“You do realise, don’t you, that the content doesn’t change from copy to copy?”  
  
Kazuya shrugged. “I’d rather not risk it.”  
  
“Oh, for the love of…” Lee hissed in frustration and made a lunge for him. “Give me that!”  
  
Kazuya dodged him, but just barely. He scrambled up and backwards and nearly lost his balance as he struggled not to lose his place in the book. Lee was faster, better positioned and most importantly, incredibly angry. Nothing made Kazuya’s heart race more than the idea of fighting him. Seconds, all it took was seconds for that incredible high to spiral upwards and then… the phone rang.  
  
Again.  
  
No, no! No! And the moment was gone. Lee snapped out of it and pulled back.  
  
“No, just don’t…” Kazuya began, but it was too late already. With a furious glare, Lee raised his palm outwards, silencing him.  
  
“Yes?” he answered the phone curtly. He massaged his temples between his thumb and index finger and closed his eyes, the little furrow between his fine brows becoming deeper and deeper as he listened to what the person on the other side was saying. “How much…? Yes, I realise that we are running late… Yes, yes. Tell him to call back in… One second! Kazuya! Wait! Where the fuck are you going?”  
  
Kazuya didn’t reply as he stalked away. He was fuming and the tension was beginning to hurt. He just walked, barely hearing Lee shouting after him over the blood pounding in his ears. The thwarted promise of a fight, of release, made everything just that much worse. Agitated beyond reason, he had to remove himself before he smashed that fucking phone into a thousand tiny pieces.  
  
“I’ll call you back,” Lee said and finished the call. He glared after Kazuya and restrained himself from going after him. He was too angry for it to end well and violence would get nothing done- it’s not like he could get Kazuya to sign with brute force.  Besides, he really didn’t feel like flying to London with bruises.  
  
He needed to think.  
  
There was more to this than interrupted sex, there had to be, but he couldn’t see it. It was hardly unusual for Kazuya to sulk and throw tantrums- he was inclined to be hostile and destructive towards things he felt he was being neglected for, but sabotaging such a major operation that would bring them tremendous losses if it didn’t go through was beyond even him and Lee had been so confident that they were past this stage, especially when it came to business and particularly since they had truly started working together. With their mutual interests at stake, Kazuya was less likely to lash out because he felt excluded when Lee didn’t have time for anything outside the office.  
  
Reining in his temper, Lee walked into the warm semi-darkness of the house and picked a position for his stake-out. He knew that he wouldn’t have to wait long because he recognised the signs; Kazuya was about to storm off, business be damned. He had never quite learned that turning his back to his issues was not the same as figuring them out. Problems didn’t go away just because he scowled at them.  
  
Lee chose a shady crook at the foot of the stairs. Outwardly calm and half hidden by the shadows, he sat down in a massive chair that almost engulfed him in its decadent opulence and waited for Kazuya to fling the bedroom door open. Fully dressed once more, he thundered down like a tempest and when he saw him, his eyes narrowed into a hateful glare. Lee didn’t even move, but the look he fixed him with ice-cold and hard.  
  
It stopped him in his tracks.  
  
“Kazuya, is there a reason why you don’t want this deal to go through?” he said, deliberately keeping the anger out of his voice. “Because if there is something that you are not telling me, I need to know about it. Now.”  
  
Braced for a fight, Kazuya took the calm tone with caution, expecting an explosion at any moment.  
  
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said and crossed his arms defensively across his chest.  
  
“This expansion was your idea, you know that,” Lee said. “I will not even go into the ridiculous reasons why you wanted us to move to Europe when I already have an established chain of production elsewhere, but I went along with it. For you.”  
  
Kazuya flinched, his entire body moving backwards as if he was struck by this simple statement of fact. He realised it immediately and his chin jutted out in defiance. America was a long-standing point of dispute and discontent. Lee’s ties to a place where he had none himself were nothing but a constant reminder of a life his brother had had on his own. A full and productive life.  
  
A life without him.  
  
“I don’t want you going back there,” he said in a flat, final tone.  
  
“Then sign the fucking papers,” Lee said and handed them to him. For someone who was so hard to extract information from, Kazuya was ridiculously easy to read.  
  
Sullen and angry, Kazuya took them and glared.  
  
“I don’t have a pen,” he grumbled, but Lee already had one out and gave it to him with exaggerated flare.  
  
There was no way out and no excuses he could think of to postpone this, but he still hesitated. Calm and composed, Lee crossed his legs and took a cigarette out of his pocket. He lit it, inhaled deeply and let out a long wisp of smoke. He was waiting and Kazuya knew that he had no choice. It was either sign the papers or explain. They glared white in front of him and the letters crawled across them like living things. He found it hard to focus. He really, really didn’t want to sign, because doing so would mean that Lee would be taking the trip to London and he couldn’t quite pinpoint why this bothered him. It was only for three days. He could survive without him for three days.  
  
Or could he?  
  
Suddenly, the prospect of three whole nights of going to bed without him seemed so endless and long. The very thought of the silence, the emptiness that permeated every corner of their house when Lee wasn’t there was unbearable, but how could he even begin to voice an explanation for that?  
  
He slammed the paperwork down on to the nearby table and with his vision swimming, signed above his printed name. One page. Then the next. And the next. He pressed down so hard, the paper crumpled and tore. Lee made no comment. When he was done, Kazuya threw them all at him, bitter and ungraceful in his defeat.  
  
The sheets scattered at Lee’s feet and he looked at him with his sharp, clever eyes. He was judging, assessing, and suddenly, Kazuya was struck by a fear that he would read right through him and see it all- just how much he needed him close and how afraid he was of letting him go. He snarled and stormed out of the house, making his best attempt to mask his panic in anger. When he had made it far enough to be sure that Lee hadn’t followed, he stopped, because he had no sense of direction.  
  
The wind was strong and bitterly cold. Spinning in a circle, he buried his hands in his hair. Frustrated and confused, he roared, grateful when it was drowned in the rage of elements around him and the sound of waves crashing against the shore.


	3. Seduction

Lee normally found the hum of the engine soothing, but this time, it failed to do its magic. The long drive was nothing but infuriating and he kept checking his watch every thirty seconds, only to find that the hands had barely moved. There was so much work still left to be done, but he had made a point of leaving early. With the paperwork finally signed, the preparations were finished and all that was left were the formalities. Barring any unexpected developments, it was nothing that his staff couldn’t handle and even without looking back at the events of the day behind him, his gut told him that the big problem he now had was not in the office, but rather at home.

The night was abysmally dark and time seemed to crawl. Restlessly, he changed his seat in the vast, luxurious limousine to the one opposite to where he’d been sitting and opted to roll down the window in the partition rather than to speak through the intercom. He hoped that the actual presence of another human being might distract him.

“Excuse me,” he said, “can’t we go any faster?” He was sure that if he’d been the one driving, he would have been home long ago by now.

“We are going as fast as we can, Mr Lee,” the chauffeur replied.

Lee seriously doubted the truth behind that statement and scowled at the back of his head. He was one of Kazuya’s people, imposed upon him after he had crashed a second car in ten days. He’d been forced to agree to the demeaning escort because there had been no end to his brother’s fury _. Irresponsible and unsafe_ , that was what he had called him. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had seen Kazuya so angry, unreasonably so, but any attempts to explain to him that he was clearly overreacting had only served to enrage him further. There had been no way around it.

“How much longer?”

“Half an hour, Mr Lee.”

“Half an hour?!” Lee cried in dismay. “Why is it taking so long?”

“We are almost there, sir,” the chauffeur was unfazed by his impatience. Kazuya had trained him well.

“So fucking useless,” Lee growled and rolled the window shut.

The anger served to tide him over the worst of his impatience. Idly, he wondered how long he would have to put up with this before he could bring it up to Kazuya that he wanted his own cars back and not have all hell come down upon his head. Of course, in order to successfully undertake something so delicate, he had to make damn sure that there were no other standing disagreements at hand, which could, realistically, take a really long time.

It was a troublesome thought.

He wondered briefly if the whole car thing had had something to do with the debacle that had gone down that morning. There were no obvious connections that he could think of, but it was the latest and the most isolated of their fights in the recent months; an anomaly in what had almost become a shockingly synchronised and harmonious coexistence. One could never tell with Kazuya, the strangest things had a way of being warped in his sometimes twisted perceptions of reality.

This was not random. It couldn’t be. Rationally, he knew that he should be angry, but instead, he was worried, and the implications of this gnawed at him. For some reason, spending the night with Kazuya, the last night they had before he flew out, seemed to have become a matter of urgency rather than of indulgence. Leaving this instability to fester while they were on two different continents was not an option.

He had to put an end to this tonight.

He felt the car slowing down and peered out of the window. The tall, black gates to the estate opened before them and the armed, armoured security stepped back as his presence was verified.

“About fucking time,” he hissed under his breath and changed seats again, this time so that he could look forward. The road snaked into the darkness in front of them. He looked up the hill and was cheered to see the lights of the house. A yawn caught him by surprise; he hadn’t even realised how tired he was until the prospect of home had come into view.

The car pulled up and as he got out, Lee was struck by the gloom that hung over the night. The rolling sigh of the sea washed over the stillness and the cold wind tousled his hair. The guards stood at ease and parted to let him pass.

“Welcome home, Mr Lee.”

“Has Mr Mishima returned?” he asked.

The unspoken dread hovered in the brief hesitation. “He did not come through here.”

It was implied that he didn’t know. Kazuya’s other means of coming and going were left unremarked upon. Unspeakable. Unmentionable. Those who suspected kept their silence and the winged shadow that haunted their skies remained unvoiced.

Lee hurriedly climbed the steep stairs to the front porch. The house was deathly quiet, the lights muted and nothing moved, inside or out.

What if Kazuya wasn’t there?

He unlocked the door and stepped inside. Nobody came out to greet him. He took off his shoes and walked through the vast silence on equally silent feet. He made his way up into the bedroom, his heart sinking when he saw no light. He dropped his jacket, loosened his tie and started undoing his belt. When he turned the corner, he stopped, taken aback by the sudden relief.

Kazuya was there after all; he saw his dark outline through the sheer curtain. He was sitting on the edge of a wicker chair on the veranda- still and self-contained under a meagre beam of light. He must have heard Lee come in but was deliberately ignoring him and his back was purposely turned to the door. He bristled with his ill mood, emanating his injury like an aura and Lee nearly laughed. Kazuya was a sore loser and the darkness that pulled him down when that happened was like a black flood that engulfed everything in its vicinity.

But Lee was unaffected.

He had always been unaffected; he didn’t survive his childhood in Heihachi’s house by letting the weight of Kazuya’s black moods bear him down. He would have drowned in them long ago if he’d ever let them stick and besides, all he had to do was look at things from the right perspective- Kazuya losing really meant that he had won, which was always a good thing. The rest didn’t matter, because Lee knew how to cheer him up. Reconciliations were easy when your other half wasn’t somewhere out there, lost and moping in the night.

He slid the door open and stepped outside. Kazuya turned grudgingly, taking him in with dark eyes as he glided over on bare feet; soundless, luminous and graceful. The moon was in his white hair and the wind in his half-unbuttoned shirt.

“Good evening, brother,” he said and very lightly, ran the tips of his fingers over Kazuya’s bare back. “Are you having fun there, all on your own and sulking in your little corner?”

“Why are you here?” Kazuya scowled. He was still reading that book and was almost three quarters through. “I thought you wouldn’t come home tonight.”

“Ah,” Lee draped his arms loosely over the back of the chair and his fingers whispered above Kazuya’s chest, not quite touching the bare skin and making every little hair on his body stand on its end. “Contrary to what you may believe,” he said, “I live here, not at the office.”

Kazuya tensed all over, unable to control even the most basic of reactions to his proximity. Lee’s lips were hot velvet against his nape, there was a fire in his touch and it was spreading to him quickly, easily, as if he was dry firewood.

“Really?” he said. “Sometimes, it’s hard to tell.”

“Okay, I’ll concede on that,” Lee laughed. “But I am here now. Aren’t you going to ask me how my day went?”

Ah. There it was. The fire fizzled and apprehension tightened in his stomach like a vice. Everything about him became hard; an ingrained, reflexive, preprogramed armour. He knew very well how Lee’s day had gone and it hadn’t been good.

“I don’t give a fuck about your day.”

“No, obviously you don’t, considering the lengths you went to to ruin it,” Lee said lightly. “But I’ll tell you anyway. I’ve scheduled an appointment with my architect!”

Kazuya blinked. “You… what?”

“You heard me!” Lee said. “Since you’ve destroyed the reception, I am now taking the opportunity to redecorate and I’ll be billing your department with the costs!”

“I flipped over a couple of tables!” Kazuya cried. “That hardly warrants a whole reconstruction!”

“Hn, let’s agree to disagree,” Lee said pleasantly.

“Fine!” Kazuya acquiesced. “But I demand to be included in the design process and I am drawing a line right now at fluorescent spots!”

“Tsk,” Lee said. “Why do you always put down my creative ideas? You are so difficult!”

“I am difficult?” Kazuya yelled. “Your last _idea_ was to put a pool table in the fucking bathroom and I am the one being difficult?”

“But it would be so awesome!” Lee complained. Even without turning, in his mind’s eye, Kazuya could see the petulant downturn of his pretty mouth and the tiny furrow between his brows. “You just have no sense of style.”

“And you have no common sense!” he replied, far too emotionally frayed for this conversation. “You can’t have a pool table in there and there will be no fucking spots! Not in my company, not in my living room, not in the goddamn toilet. No!”

“All right!” Lee said. “But there will be rules.”

“What rules?”

“Simple rules,” Lee replied. “To begin with, you will not threaten the architect with bodily harm.”

Kazuya rolled his eyes.

“You will keep an open mind.”

Kazuya opened his mouth to reply to that, but decided against it. Was this it? All that Lee had come up with to punish him for the day he’d put him through? At that point, he would have given him an entire building, just to make it all go away.

“And when I schedule the appointment,” Lee concluded, “you will be there. No stalling, no delays, no excuses. If you don’t show up, I will put in all the fluorescent lights that I want and you will not say a word about it. Ever. Say you agree.”

Kazuya’s imagination conjured up the bright, blaring colours and he couldn’t, but he opted for the next best thing.

“I’ll be there,” he ground out with effort.

“Excellent,” Lee said in a low, breathy voice and nuzzled against him. He was warm, he was close and Kazuya breathed in the heady, expensive scent clinging to his skin. Ridiculous how easily the fire was reignited. How easily the lead in the pit of his stomach melted and once again coursed through him- liquid and searing hot. He clenched his hands on the book to stop them from shaking; he couldn’t let Lee see it, even though Lee didn’t need to see. Lee knew. He held all the power; aware of it, in charge of it, pulling his strings.

It infuriated him.

“Is there anything else?” he snarled.

“Sorry?” Lee blinked; a slow, distracted, almost deliberate step behind him.

“If there is nothing else that you need, I would appreciate it if you fucked off,” Kazuya said slowly, accentuating each word in a futile, desperate bid to regain control. “I’m in the middle of something here.”

“In the middle of what, exactly?” Lee asked and rubbed his cheek against his. Clearly, he had no intention of going away. The low silk of his voice slithered under his skin and caught fire there. He was up to something, Kazuya knew it, but his head was too hot to disassemble it. He couldn’t think. Even expecting a trap and unable to take the physical closeness at face-value, he still found that he couldn’t summon the will power to make a move and push him away.

“I am reading,” he scowled, “and things were just getting interesting when you showed up!”

“Interesting?”

“Yes,” Kazuya said. “If you must know, I’ve made it to the sex scene and you are ruining the mood!”

Lee’s laughter vibrated down his spine, tantalising and close. It infected his blood and settled in his groin.

“Mmmm…” he murmured and placed a hot, half formed kiss behind his ear. “There doesn’t seem to be much of a mood to ruin!” His hands slipped down in a caress, kneading the knots in his shoulders and his slick, hot tongue slipped out to lick where his lips had just touched. “You are so hard in all the wrong places!”

“Fuck you,” Kazuya said gruffly, flustered, offended and out of his depth.

“Funny you should mention fucking,” Lee said and caught his lobe lightly between his teeth. “Because I’ve turned my phone off.”

“What?” Kazuya didn’t immediately make the connection through the noise in his head.

“I’m going to take a shower now and then I’ll be off to bed,” Lee replied, lowering his voice to speak in his ear. “I thought that you might want to join me. I thought that perhaps we could finish what we started this morning. It was so promising! Pity we never got to the conclusion.”

Kazuya’s mind blanked.

“But obviously, if you’d rather read about it…”Lee gave an exaggerated sigh and pulled smoothly away. “I’m sure that I can find a way to entertain myself on my own.”

Disoriented, Kazuya turned to watch him go.

Lee yawned and stretched, lithe and flexible as a cat. His shirt rode up and exposed the smooth white skin of his midriff. He gave Kazuya five seconds before he followed him inside.

Four… three…

The audible whoosh of the supernatural speed shocked him and he was slammed into the wall before his mind had time to adjust. He gasped as he was lifted and Kazuya’s eyes glowed up red; hungry, angry and insane. He growled at him in threat and promise, a hint of fangs daring him to resist, but Lee smiled gleefully and wrapped his legs around his waist. He wanted to gloat, but before he could form words, he was pulled down and kissed. Kazuya was frighteningly big and aroused and Lee moaned into his mouth. When they pulled apart to breathe, he met Kazuya’s glare with hooded, hungry eyes and caught his slick, swollen lip between his teeth.

“Do you still think that I am hard in all the wrong places?” Kazuya snarled and pressed up against him, letting him feel it. “Don’t play with my head, you fucking little tease! I will fuck you so hard, you will not walk straight for a week!”

Lee laughed and rolled his hips in response, aching, wanting and obvious.

“Is that… ah, is that supposed to be a deterrent?”

Kazuya’s eyes narrowed and Lee could almost hear his pulse for a couple of long moments; loud and massive, beating like an oversized gong. It was a brief stemming of the flood by its own overwhelming size before he was spun around and thrown face down on to the bed. Breathing hard, he tried to come up, but his wrist was caught immediately and pinned to the small of his back. Kazuya came down above him, terrible and inflamed. Hunger took over and engulfed everything in its path. Panting as his pants were torn from him and his legs almost forcibly spread apart, Lee laughed in the face of his last coherent thoughts:

First, it looked like flying to London with bruises was unavoidable and second, that book must not have been all that interesting after all.


	4. Closeness

It was two in the morning by the time Lee had finally reconciled himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to sleep. It was torturous- he would drift, dragged under for brief minutes, only to jerk awake at the critical moment before he descended into the much-needed deeper phase. His brain was in overdrive and the racing thoughts wouldn’t settle. His head throbbed. He was drained, both physically and emotionally. He hurt all over- part from exhaustion, part from the extremely strenuous exercise he had engaged only brief hours ago. Bruised and bitten, numerous little hotspots of pain made themselves known whenever he made the slightest move and he was already beginning to dread the day ahead of him. Every bone he had in his body ached. He would be a broken mess if he didn’t get some rest and he needed all his strength and focus for what was coming.  
  
Also, he worried.  
  
He glanced briefly at Kazuya. His breathing was deep and even and his dark hair scattered in a mess on the pillow between them. His heavy arm bore down over his waist, trapping him. Getting out without waking him would be painstaking work, but Lee really, really needed to get to his phone. He had to call, he had to check. He felt as if he was in a vacuum; isolated, cocooned and oblivious. The world may as well have come to an end for all he knew and his only connection, his source of all information, was off. Dead and silent in a corner where he couldn’t just reach for it.  
  
What if he simply got up and turned it on? Did it matter if Kazuya woke up?  
  
It was better not to risk it.  
  
He had to move his arm if he was going to make his escape and he decided for the old, already tried trick that may or may not work. Very lightly, he ran his fingers over his stomach and down his side, tickling, annoying, but not overly so. He knew from previous experience that Kazuya would either shift to get away from it, or wake up. The odds were fifty-fifty either way.  
  
He held his breath as Kazuya growled and grumbled and then turned on his back. His arm fell away and Lee lay very still, waiting. Kazuya’s eyelids fluttered and he seemed to open his eyes briefly, but the he gave a deep sigh and closed them again. His breathing evened out and Lee gently laid the palm of his hand over his chest, feeling the deep, calm heartbeat. Slowly, carefully, as if he was playing a game of chess, he squirmed away, inch by careful inch, making a pause after every move and gauging Kazuya’s reactions, how deeply gone he was and what he could get away with.  
  
He slipped out of bed cautiously, taking care not to let the cool outside air between the blankets and into the warm spot where he had been only moments ago. Soundlessly, he tiptoed to the jacket that he’d carelessly dumped in a corner and with a huge sense of relief, got the phone out of his pocket.  
  
He looked over to the bed.  
  
Kazuya hadn’t moved; he still slept, massive and quiet, shrouded in darkness and in heat. Lee felt a thrill, not unlike the one that was usually reserved for small mischiefs, and quietly slipped through the bedroom, down the low, curved stairs into the adjoining sitting area and out on to the veranda. It was cold outside, but it was safe to turn on the phone without worrying that the sudden chime of sound might wake a certain ill-tempered someone up. He waited impatiently for the start-up to load and to his infinite dismay, found thirteen messages waiting for him in the inbox. He sifted through them quickly, but there were no bad news. They were simple status updates from his staff; everything was fine and going according to plan. The last one was time-stamped only half an hour ago- the contracts were sealed, the work was finished and they were all going home to sleep.  
  
How lucky for them.  
  
The massive coil of anxiety that had had him so strung out and tense unravelled, and he suddenly felt foolish. Logically, he had to have known that if there had been problems, phone of no phone, his people would have been able to reach him. He had other phones in the house. He had staff inside and out who were perfectly capable of answering them and knocking on the door to inform him of any impending troubles. Feeling drained and frayed around the edges, he turned to go back inside and tripped on something uncomfortable and hard.  
  
“Ow!” he exclaimed and looked down. It was Kazuya’s book, mistreated and messed up; lying sprawled where he’d dropped it yesterday evening. Scowling, Lee picked it up and took it with him. He sat on the couch and turned on the soft, muted lamp to examine it closer. The bright cover with the gold lettering was crumpled and torn and the spine permanently bent in the place where Kazuya had stopped reading. Lee hadn’t held an actual book that was made out of real paper in ages and he was surprised by how heavy it was.  
  
Curious, he let it open and started reading a passage at random.  
  
 _“…his searing, azure-veined man-hammer reamed through her divine scar, slick with the love juices from her treasure chest. She threw back her shimmering amethyst tresses as his throbbing member throbbed between her quivering thighs and divine ecstasy squeezed her innards into bliss. Her wet cave of lust milked his heat-seeking rod and his pulsating manhood exploded as he spilled the white life jelly into her…”_  
  
“Into her… _what?!”_  
  
He closed the book and glanced at the cover again. The author’s name in enormous gold letters stood above the unrealistically proportioned, ridiculously positioned male and female figures entangled in a passionate embrace that defied all laws of gravity. Below them, the title tangled in a mess of excessive vines that formed no particular pattern. His eyebrows rose as he read it out.  
  
 _Hostage of His Manly Loins,_ by Clytemnestra de Beauclerc.  
  
He flipped the book over to find the heavily airbrushed, black and white portrait of the author striking up a pose with a glass of wine and a fountain pen which was, he supposed, meant to exude sophistication, but only managed to appear awkward and embarrassingly fake. He skimmed through the biography underneath and his eyes widened in shock at the number of copies she had sold to date.  
  
Who in their right mind reads this sort of thing?  
  
“What are you doing with that?” Kazuya’s dark, angry voice struck down like a hammer. Lee jumped in his seat and looked up at him with wide, guilty eyes. His brother stood above him on top of the small stairway, his arms crossed across his chest and a massive scowl on his face.  
  
“I… I was just…” Lee found himself at a loss for words. It was a good question. What was he doing with it? That he had tripped over it by accident while he was outside, secretly checking messages on the phone he had promised to turn off, was not an acceptable explanation.  
  
“Give it back!” Kazuya growled and stalked down. He snatched the book away from him and Lee just barely had to presence of mind to push the phone beneath the cushions and out of his sight while he was distracted. “You can’t have it!”  
  
“Ha! I don’t want it!” Lee exclaimed. “Look at the condition you have it in! The spine is all broken and every second page has dog ears! Besides, I already bought the girls a new copy.”  
  
Kazuya didn’t seem to believe him and held the book safely out of his reach. “Really.”  
  
“Three, actually,” Lee clarified. “One for each, to make up for the trauma. And expensive chocolates in your name, wrapped in fancy paper and a pink bow.”  
  
He really had, and he now felt like banging his head against the wall for adding to that insane number at the bottom of the back cover. Repeatedly. His faith in humanity dwindled further every day.  
  
“You didn’t,” Kazuya said flatly as he examined the book for anything nefarious that Lee might have done to it.  
  
“Oh, I did!” Lee said. “And you are going to apologise to them in person too, because not keeping your staff happy is detrimental to the smooth running of business.”  
  
“Hmph,” Kazuya scowled.  
  
Lee could be remarkably tedious when it came to things like this. The last time they were in this situation, he’d gone on and on about it forever and Kazuya really didn’t want to keep on fighting.Perhaps not wringing their skinny little necks the next time he ran into them in the hallway qualified as an apology? He hated them. He hated them to the core of his being, with their pretty faces and their silly giggles and adoring eyes. He wasn’t jealous; not really, anyway. He knew that Lee had no interest in fucking any of them; they were children- shallow, transparent and so very young- no different to him to the potted plants dispersed throughout the building as a twist on interior décor, with the added benefit that they took his calls, brought him coffee and sorted through his mail.  
  
None of this stopped them from loving him, though.  
  
All of them flirted and vied for his attention right in front of Kazuya, as if he didn’t even exist. It was infuriating that they didn’t know, couldn’t know- that even they, insignificant little insects that they were, could fawn over him so openly, publically, while he had to look on in bitter silence because the only way he could only assert his claim over the man he loved was in secret and behind closed doors.  
  
An architect and fluorescent lights would have to be enough.  
  
“Why are you up, anyway?”  
  
“I couldn’t sleep,” Lee said, sounding wretched and unhappy. Kazuya put the book down and reached out to touch his face, relieved when it wasn’t rebuffed and not entirely sure why he thought it would be. Lee turned into the palm of his hand, nuzzled and kissed it. Encouraged by the simple affection, he took a step closer and Lee leaned his forehead against his stomach.  
  
“You are shivering,” he noted and Lee shrugged.  
  
“I’m cold,” he said. He hadn’t been able to recapture the heat he’d lost when he’d wandered outside, barefoot and barely dressed.  
  
“You went out to check your phone, didn’t you?” Kazuya said, guessing easily, now that he was close enough to smell the cool scent of the night that still lingered on his skin.  
  
Lee looked up at him, obviously guilty and too tired to lie.  
  
“Yes,” he said and Kazuya gave a long-suffering sigh. There were rings of exhaustion around his dark, pretty eyes and in the scarce light, he seemed almost worryingly pale. A large bruise was welling in the crook between his shoulder and neck and Kazuya distinctly remembered putting it there. The weight of the day behind them lay between them.  
  
“And is everything all right?” he asked, trying his best to sound like he really cared. Lee blinked at him in surprise. He’d obviously been expecting a resurrection of the fight.  
  
“It is,” he said. The vicious compulsion that had forced him to get out of bed had fizzled and without the unhealthy throb of energy, he felt sick, heavy and drained. “Everything is finished and ready for tomorrow.”  
  
“So, do you think you can sleep now?” Kazuya asked.  
  
“You’re not angry?” Lee said suspiciously.  
  
Kazuya sighed and sat down beside him. “When am I not angry with you?” he said querulously and pulled him close. “Come here.”  
  
Lee went easily. His aching head felt as if it was full of air and Kazuya was solid, stable and hot. He grounded him. There was a comforter thrown over the back of the couch and Kazuya pulled it over them when they lay down.  
  
“Kaz,” Lee finally voiced the crux of his trouble, “what was all that about today?”  
  
“Nothing,” Kazuya said curtly.  
  
Lee looked up. “Nothing?”  
  
Kazuya shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “I just don’t like it when you work late and never come home. I hate it when you sneak in and out of bed at all times of the night. It gives me bad dreams.”  
  
Lee studied him for a long moment, contemplating, but then his forehead evened out and he closed his eyes. He was too tired to insist on it and there was always tomorrow.  
  
“I still can’t believe you stole that book,” he said.  
  
“Confiscated,” Kazuya corrected.  
  
“Hn,” Lee said. “Either way, letting them read it would have been a worse punishment.”  
  
“Oh, be quiet,” Kazuya said, offended on the behalf of the book. “I like it!”  
  
Lee turned up towards him.  
  
“Seriously?” he said. “What is there to like? It’s awful!”  
  
“It has great characterisation!”  
  
“Characterisation?”  
  
“Yes!” Kazuya said. “For example, you have this awesome main character! He is great and powerful and he is a king of this huge kingdom, where he does a really good job of cruelly killing everyone who opposes him.”  
  
“How does that make him a great king?” Lee asked. “He sounds like a tyrant to me.”  
  
“Do you want me to tell you or not?” Kazuya said irritably.  
  
“Yes, please do!” Lee said quickly.  
  
“Then don’t interrupt!”  
  
Lee yawned and settled as Kazuya went on. He had never quite outgrown bed time stories, especially when Kazuya was the one telling them. An entire lifetime later, they still brought on an almost reflexive urge to sleep. They used to do this when they were children; just the two of them, alone and awake in the dark at some godforsaken hour of the night. Kazuya had a collection of serial novels and comics that he loved; he would always pick obscure characters to follow- someone hidden in the shadow of the mainstream plot- and then track them obsessively. He’d never grow tired of trying to explain it to Lee, who could never see the appeal and consistently failed to grasp the point of it all.  
  
But he had loved listening to Kazuya talk.  
  
Sometimes, this was the only thing helping him cope, especially during the hell of the early years. One might think that the stories of violence and gore such as could be find in publications aimed at teenage boys were not the sort of thing one should listen to if they had trouble sleeping, but there was nothing in there that could possibly bring on nightmares worse than the stuff that Lee was already dreaming of. Anything that they might have spawned was an improvement in comparison.  
  
“So, he is in love with this woman who makes his life miserable because she can’t be trusted. She is very beautiful and every man who lays his eyes on her wants to fuck her and the king solves the problem by building a huge castle in a magical labyrinth to lock her up in.”  
  
Lee laughed. “Kazuya, there is a difference between a relationship and confinement! You should know that by now!”  
  
“What did I say about interrupting?”  
  
“Sorry!”  
  
“Anyway, he finally has her under lock and key, and things are going great, but then this nuisance of a knight shows up and starts making trouble…”  
  
“Kaz, you do realise that you are identifying with the villain here, don’t you?” Lee said sleepily.  
  
“What are you talking about?”  
  
“The king is the villain,” Lee yawned again. “He will probably die a horrible death in the end and the lady will run off with the knight.”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Kazuya said angrily. “What kind of an ending is that?”  
  
“A happy one?”  
  
“Oh, shut up!” Kazuya growled. “You just have no sense for this sort of thing!”  
  
“Mmmm…” Lee murmured, already drifting far enough for Kazuya’s voice to sound distant and blurred.  
  
“I’m never telling you a story again!” Kazuya grumbled, more to himself than to him. Lee wasn’t listening anymore. His body was limp and heavy, his breathing slow and his blue-rimmed eyes sealed shut.  
  
Typical.  
  
But what was he going to do now? Any chance _he’d_ had of sleep was thoroughly fucked. He arched his neck to look at the coffee table above him. The book was still there!  
  
The lady run off with the knight, indeed! He scoffed. Lee had no idea what he was talking about.  
  
He shifted to raise himself up higher and adjusted his brother’s pliant body to make them both more comfortable. Lee stirred and huddled down deeper in the narrow ridge between him and the back of the couch. Kazuya put his one arm around him and took the book with the other.  
  
Where was he, anyway?  
  
Ah, yes. The sex.


	5. Fear

Stupid book.  
  
Stupid, stupid, stupid fucking book! He ripped it in half, threw it against the wall and then he picked it up and ripped it some more. He stomped on it with all the rage he could muster and far more violence than it deserved, but it was soft and it was flexible and it didn’t shatter in that satisfying way he expected of something when he slammed it against a hard surface. Infuriated, he picked up a piece closest to him and threw it into the fireplace. The paper flared immediately and it brought on a brief surge of satisfaction, enough to calm him down for a moment, but not destined to last very long.  
  
The emptiness overwhelmed him. The den was empty, the entire building was empty. He may as well have been alone in the whole of Japan! The accumulated tension that he’d used to build a dam fell to pieces and the silence he’d been hiding from came crashing down.  
  
Lee was gone and he slammed his fist into a wall.  
  
The panic, the absolute panic overwhelmed him. Three days. It was three days. Desperately, he tried to tell himself that it was only three days. That they would pass in a heartbeat. He tried with anger; anger at himself for the weakness and the idea that he couldn’t survive without him for even a second, but it was too late. The scream welled inside him, the pressure built and he knew, he simply knew that nothing- not reason, not pride, not decades of self-control- would be able to hold it in.  
  
“Time… time, what’s the time?”  
  
Twenty minutes. There were twenty minutes left before the plane took off. Beyond any semblance of control, he spread his wings and jumped down. He stalked into the swarming, unsuspecting office and the bewildered people looked up, all of them suddenly shocked into silence.  
  
“Stop him!” he roared and his eyes blazed red. They all jumped, wide eyed in front of his madness and then scattered in terror to do his bidding. “Stop that damned plane! Bring him back! Bring him here!”  
  
Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes.  
  
Nineteen… eighteen…  
  
He retreated into privacy, not liking the idea of falling apart in front of so many eyes.  
  
There was not enough time. They simply couldn’t get there in time! The plane would fly off with Lee in it and take him to the other end of the world, far away from him, where he couldn’t see him, couldn’t touch him, couldn’t reach him. Lee, who was rebellious and independent. Lee, who did whatever the fuck he wanted whenever he wanted it. Lee, who attracted trouble like a magnet. A million things could go wrong when he wasn’t watching him! Horrible possibilities raced through his mind, each worse than the one before. Did he really sign off on this? What had he been thinking?  
  
He couldn’t understand. He must have gone mad.  
  
Europe! Europe, of all the places in the world! Europe, where Heihachi’s bastard was still at large. The very thought of him and everything that he represented made his heart race and he felt his breath coming short. All the things he never even thought about, let alone voiced out loud suddenly crawled out from the deepest entrails of his psyche and clamoured for his attention. Every terror that had ever weighed him down was suddenly real and present and unavoidable. It was like a tide, like a flood of all the doubts and fears and premonitions. It was overwhelming.  
  
He knew what Alexandersson felt for Lee.  
  
He had seen how he looked at him and sensed all the turmoil. Nobody knew better than Kazuya what it was like to want him and not have him. It drove one insane and there was no telling what he could do.  
  
He paced and the massive auditorium suddenly seemed too small. With each passing moment, his panic grew. He bared his fangs and clenched his fists, struggling to stop himself from roaring again. He was helpless, reduced to waiting, and it infuriated him.  
  
“Sir,” a head poked out from around the heavy door. Kazuya halted in the middle of his step and spun around. “Good news, sir. They caught the plane on time. Mr Lee has been apprehended.”  
  
He breathed out in relief. “Where is he now?”  
  
“The guard is bringing him back. They should be here within the hour.”  
  
“Wonderful!” Kazuya exclaimed, suddenly in a good mood. “Tell them to hurry. The sooner my brother is back, the better!”  
  
“Sir,” the man said. “I should warn you, sir. Mr Lee is not happy.”  
  
Destroyed, relieved and insane, Kazuya laughed. As long as Lee was with him and not half the fucking world away, he didn’t really care.  
  
He looked down through the window.  
  
People crawled below him like ants, until at last, he saw the convoy pulling up. Surrounded by a heavy guard, the black, armoured truck came to a stop and there was a flash of silver as Lee exited the vehicle. The absolute rage was obvious from his his stance and the wary distance of a couple of feet that his escort kept, not daring to lay their hands on him. Kazuya imagined that there had to be some with broken bones who had tried and smiled grimly, feeling a twisted sort of satisfaction that Lee was still forced to come at his command.  
  
Finally, they were inside of the building. Minutes. Only minutes now for Lee to ride up in the elevator. He waited for the sound of his heavy boots with eager anticipation. There would be no peace before he could see him, touch him, feel him again.  
  
“Kazuya!” Lee yelled and forced the doors open with such strength, they cracked on their hinges. Even expecting him to be upset, Kazuya was still shocked by the extent of his pure rage. Lee didn’t drop his masks often, but when he did, he was difficult to behold. He shook all over and his dark eyes blazed.  
  
“Did you seriously just send a paramilitary to drag me off the plane?” he roared.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I changed my mind,” Kazuya said, his eyes glowing red. “I don’t want to do business with London anymore.”  
  
“You changed your mind?” Lee cried. “On the eve of finalisation?”  
  
“Yes!” Kazuya replied. “I no longer think it’s a good idea.”  
  
“Okay, you complete fucking lunatic,” Lee said, his voice dropping in volume but dripping in venom, “do you even realise how much is at stake here? Have you got any idea what massive losses we’ll take if we back out of this now?”  
  
“We’ll survive.”  
  
Lee flew forward and into his face until there were only inches between them.  
  
“You had better have a good reason for this or I swear I will kick your arse so hard, it will land in the next millennium!”  
  
“I… I have a bad feeling.”  
  
“A bad feeling?” Lee said icily. “That’s it?”  
  
Kazuya shrugged. He knew perfectly how inadequate it was, but it was the only explanation he had.  
  
Lee’s eyes narrowed. “I asked you what was wrong. I _repeatedly_ asked you what was going on!” he said. “And now you tell me this? Of all times, now, minutes before take-off, and think you can get away without explaining yourself?”  
  
“What do you want me to say?” Kazuya yelled angrily. “I don’t have a better explanation for you and I don’t give a fuck about the losses! It is only money! It’s nothing that can’t be recovered! It doesn’t even begin to compare to…”  
  
He stopped speaking abruptly.  
  
“Finish that sentence!” Lee ordered darkly. “Finish it! You will not hide things from me anymore! I will not tolerate that from you, I swear, so, say it! Compare to what?”  
  
“To losing you!” Kazuya blurted out in rage and regretted it immediately.  
  
Lee stared.  
  
“Why would you…?” he began the question, but suddenly, he understood. Stricken, shaken, he took a step back. All colour drained from his face and he was silent for a long moment.  
  
“This is about Lars again, isn’t it?” he said quietly, wide-eyed and mortified.  
  
“I won’t deny it!” Kazuya snarled. “I don’t want him anywhere near you, and here you were, about to fly off to fucking Sweden!”  
  
“England, Kazuya,” Lee said coldly. “I was going to England. They are not mutually interchangeable.”  
  
“Whatever! They are just one plane ride away from each other!”  
  
“How is that even an issue? Japan is one plane ride away from Sweden too, if you care to make the trip!”  
  
“That is really not helping your case!” Kazuya growled. “Not that it matters anyway because it’s hardly the same thing! Japan is mine!”  
  
Lee pinched the bridge of his nose and swallowed, counting silently to himself in an effort to not fall apart.  
  
“You promised me!” he hissed, trembling all over. The calm, final tone of his voice was chilling. “You promised me you wouldn’t bring him up between us again!”  
  
“I am not!” Kazuya cried.  
  
“No? Because you are about to blow a multi-billion deal because… what? You think that the moment you take your eyes off me, I will fuck our brother on a conference table with the delegates of half the continent watching?”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Kazuya sneered. Truth be told, that scenario hadn’t yet occurred to him, but now the image lodged in his mind and wouldn’t go away. He felt nauseous.  
  
“Oh, so I am the one being ridiculous?” Lee cried. “I can’t believe you! After everything we’ve been through, you still can’t trust me! Just because I fucked you, doesn’t mean I want to fuck every single member of my goddamn family!”  
  
“It isn’t you that I don’t trust!” Kazuya roared. “Stop putting words into my mouth! This isn’t about that! It isn’t even about him, even though he is the first thing that comes to my mind!”  
  
“No?” Lee yelled. “Then what is it about? Please explain it to me, because it looks pretty grim from where I’m standing.”  
  
“Are you being wilfully obtuse, or what?” Kazuya said. “There are much worse things that he can do to you than fuck you, whether you want it or not! And he is far from being the only thing that keeps me awake at night!”  
  
Lee blinked, not comprehending. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“Alexandersson is neither as benevolent nor stupid as you seem to think,” Kazuya ground out. “And he is not made of stone!”  
  
“I don’t think that he is stupid!”  
  
“Yes, you do. You think that the entire world is too stupid for you!” Kazuya said. “Yet in never ceases to amaze me how you, with your shiny, superior IQ can be so ignorant to think that you can continually fuck with people with no consequences to yourself!”  
  
“Wait, you think…” Lee started in shocked. It had never even occurred to him. It seemed so laughable. “You actually think that he would hurt me?”  
  
“That is an understatement for what I think he’d do to you if he was given the chance!” Kazuya said.  
  
“No, he wouldn’t,” Lee scoffed, dismissing it with an easy wave of his hand. “He…”  
  
“Loves you?” Kazuya finished the thought for him and glared. Lee looked up, his eyes wide and perplexed, and Kazuya sneered. “It’s precisely why he is so dangerous!”  
  
“You are wrong,” Lee said, the little furrow of distress forming between his brows.  
  
“Am I?” Kazuya cried. “Think about that! Think why this is something that I know!”  
  
“You are a fucking maniac,” Lee said. “Not every man shares your pathology. Stop projecting!”  
  
Kazuya grinned bitterly. “Ah, but what are that odds that this one in particular does?”  
  
“I think that I know him a little better than you. Lars is a good man!”  
  
“Do you, indeed?” Kazuya laughed. “Do you really think you can?” Lee took another step back away from him, the furrow between his brows deepening. “There is no such thing as ‘good men’! You know this to be true! But either way, it is beside the point because you will not get the chance to find out!”  
  
“You are out of your damn mind!” Lee cried.  
  
“So what if I fucking am?” Kazuya roared. “You are not going to Europe and that is final! It is so far! It is too dangerous! If something was to happen, if anything was to go wrong I wouldn’t be able to reach you and… and…” Kazuya shuddered and shook his head as if attempting to shed the unwanted fears. “You are the one thing that I cannot replace. I will not risk you! Not now. Not ever. Not for anything. I will sooner see everything burn!”  
  
Infuriated, Lee opened his mouth to reply, but something in Kazuya’s expression stopped him. It was there for just a moment, so elusive and fleeting, he almost thought that he’d imagined it. He blinked and looked again, but Kazuya suddenly turned away from him.  
  
There was no doubt.  
  
Fear. It was fear, or Kazuya would not have felt the need to hide. There was more to this than he was saying. Something had happened and it had shaken him badly. Lee’s mind raced, but he couldn’t remember, he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Kazuya wouldn’t tell him, or he would have done so already. Or perhaps he couldn’t. Perhaps he didn’t even know how to voice whatever it was that was bothering him. It wouldn’t have been the first time.  
  
Suddenly exhausted, he sat down in Kazuya’s massive chair, leaning his elbows on his knees and resting his head on the tips of his fingers. The silence was terrible.  
  
“Chaolan…” Kazuya said and reached out towards him.  
  
Lee stopped him with a sharp, “Don’t. Don’t you fucking touch me! You complete fucking monster.”  
  
His face was pale and drawn and with the anger suddenly defused, Kazuya withdrew his hand, almost feeling guilty for causing this.  
  
Almost, but not quite.  
  
The blaring howl of alarm that had risen to an unbearable pitch was finally silent. In his gut, he knew that he had made the right call.


	6. Reconciliation

Minutes slowly dripped into hours and Lee didn’t move.  
  
Silent and still, he lay completely curled up in Kazuya’s chair, his back turned to the room and his face hidden in the crook of his arm. Listless, dejected, he nursed his headache in misery. Kazuya had brought him tea, but it had been pointedly ignored and now sat on the floor beside him, cold and untouched.  
  
The day was drawing to a bleak, sickly end.  
  
“Isn’t Anna somewhere in the region?” Kazuya offered from his dark, unhappy corner. “We can send her in your place.”  
  
“Anna is over there on mischief and you know it!” Lee replied irritably. “And even if she wasn’t, she is a wanted terrorist in 184 countries! She would be arrested the moment she walked in through the door, and let’s not even get into the damage it would cause our reputation to have her as our official representative! I have an entire team of people steadily employed at denying her involvement with us to foreign government agencies!”  
  
“Hn,” Kazuya said. “You really should be more careful of who you have working for you.”  
  
“Working for me? You are the one who hired her!”  
  
“She is a traitor! Don’t think that I don’t know that she reports everything back to you and overrides me whenever it’s convenient for her!”  
  
“Well, perhaps you should pay her better!”  
  
“Perhaps I shouldn’t pay her anything at all, considering that you are already doing such a great job if it yourself!”  
  
“Anna is not the problem here!” Lee said and turned angrily. “And neither is who you are going to send to London in my stead! Kazuya, how am I supposed to run a corporation if you are going to have a fucking meltdown and have me imprisoned each time I need to go on a business trip?”  
  
“Don’t be dramatic,” Kazuya said and came out of the shadows. “You are not imprisoned.”  
  
“Oh, am I not?"  
  
“Of course not!”  
  
“Then what do you call being dragged off a plane by armed personnel and escorted back with a military contingent?”  
  
“Okay, I may have overreacted,” Kazuya conceded reluctantly, “but I had my reasons, you know I did! There must be some middle ground between imprisonment and Europe!”  
  
Lee sat up and glared.  
  
“I will tell you what the middle ground is,” he said tightly. “This deal _will_ go through and as soon as it is convenient, I will sell the company and try to limit the losses as much I possibly can. The American branch of Violet Systems will stay as it is and you have two choices here; you can either pack your bags and come with me the next time I need to go there, or stay here and sulk. I don’t care either way, but if you _ever_ pull something like this on me again, I swear, the hell you will unleash is _not_ something you want to see! Mark my words!”

A sharp stab of pain made his face twist and he lowered his head into his hands. Kazuya slid over and sat beside him on the arm rest. The heavy silence about them settled like a thick blanket of snow and he grew worried when Lee didn’t look up.  
  
“Does it still hurt?” he asked the obvious.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Do you want to take something?”  
  
“No, I’ll wait it out.”  
  
Carefully, he reached out to touch his white, bent nape and when Lee didn’t pull away, he stroked the soft hair there with his only his thumb. Lee’s tempers ran hot, but they were seldom very deep. Once the fuel was spent, there was usually nothing left but exhaustion.  
  
“You are so tense,” he said.  
  
“And whose fault is that?” Lee was still angry, but the undertone had changed. The venom behind it was gone, the edge was blunted and it no longer scathed. It was now only a simple matter of slipping his fingers into his hair to reaffirm the surrender.  
  
“Come here, I’ll take care of it for you,” Kazuya said and in spite of himself, Lee eased into the touch. The large palm slid down his back and then up again; warm, strong and soothing as it sneaked under the collar of his shirt. Kazuya was good at this when he wanted to be because he had thorough knowledge of anatomy in general and of Lee’s body in particular. His other hand joined the first and massaged the tension out of his shoulders.  
  
“Sometimes, I really hate you,” Lee said wearily, but he closed his eyes and kept his head down, slowly unwinding from the rollercoaster of emotional turmoil that he’d been through. Kazuya smiled to himself smugly- he didn’t care about semantics as long as Lee was there, close and shivering for him. He knew where all the right pressure points were and easily coaxed him into a state of tired bliss. When he pulled away, Lee looked up with heavy lids and scowled.  
  
“Don’t stop!” he complained.  
  
Kazuya stood and dragged him up. “Come on,” he said. “Get up!”  
  
“What? Why?” The comfortable fog was descending and he didn’t feel like moving.  
  
“You are tired and ill-tempered. I’m taking you to bed. We can continue there.” Kazuya said. “Or would you rather sleep in the chair?”  
  
It was tempting.  
  
A circular hatch opened in the ceiling above them and Lee stalled in apprehension, uncertain and unwilling.  
  
“Come,” Kazuya said, pulling him close. “I’ll let you down later. I promise.”  
  
He hooked an arm under his knees and picked him up. Lee gasped in surprise as the floor fell out from under him, but he didn’t resist it and instinctively wrapped his arm around his neck for balance. Kazuya could carry him easily and it was both humbling and intoxicating. The massive black wings spread out around them and his stomach lurched as they rose. Instinctively he held on tighter, but they were up before panic had the time to evolve.  
  
The hatch closed behind them with a gentle hum and Kazuya dumped him on to the bed unceremoniously. Lee pulled himself up to his knees and watched as the wings withdrew and his brother morphed back into his human form. He walked around, working the control pads that brought down the heavy, impenetrable blinds, closing them in. The darkness was snug and the embers in the fireplace the only source of light. With red shadows dancing on his face, Kazuya knelt down and stirred the remains. Sparks flew and he fed them firewood. Lee yawned, kicked his boots off and with the usual disregard for how much space he was taking up, huddled in the middle of the bed.  
  
The fire cackled and grew and Kazuya turned to see him already on the verge of falling asleep. He got up and walked towards him. He seized him by the ankles, pulled him close and flipped him onto his back. Lee groaned, but his entire body was pliant and soft. He squirmed as Kazuya undressed him, uncooperative and sleepy, but he was trapped beneath him and not really interested in fighting this.  
  
Now that Europe was out of the picture, Kazuya had both the leisure and proclivity for patience. Lee was there, he was safe and he was close. Sensual, sensitive and multi-orgasmic. The possibilities of what he could do to him when he took his time were endless.  
  
“Still angry?” he whispered as he kissed his throat, tracing the marks he’d left last night with his tongue. He spread his legs open and lay down between them.  
  
“Mmm…” Lee purred in pure contentment; splayed and aroused beneath him. “Absolutely furious.”  
  
Kazuya grinned and ground against him, adjusting, letting him adapt to the rhythm. Already, their breathing was becoming heavy and ragged and Lee moaned in protest when he pulled away to trail kisses down his chest. His rose up, seeking contact, seeking friction, but Kazuya caught hold of his hips and pinned them down. He moved lower over his body and Lee gasped when his tongue twirled around and then penetrated his navel. He arched and twisted, but Kazuya held him in place.  
  
“Please, please, please…” he begged for a reprieve.  
  
None was forthcoming; Kazuya licked his erection through the fabric of his designer underwear and he screamed.  
  
Lee knew from previous experience what it meant when Kazuya took him to bed and locked everything down. The briefs came off and he was left naked and shivering. He groaned and twisted as two fingers pushed into him. The lube was cold and he was not ready for so much so soon.  
  
“Shhh…” Kazuya breathed against his stomach, holding him still, not letting him get away.  
  
Sobbing on broken breath, Lee struggled to compose himself. They had only just begun and he was already too far gone. If he didn’t regain some semblance of control over this soon, he would be half-insane by the time Kazuya was done. Desperately, he squirmed away as far as he could, his head hanging over the edge of the bed as he gasped for breath. It was cooler there, easier to clear his head, easier to think. Distracted by the elegant arch of his throat, Kazuya let him; he had the whole night ahead of them to tear him to pieces. The two fingers scissored easily in and out of his body now, forcing a jolt out of him each time Kazuya deliberately pressed against his prostate, and when he added a third, it went in with no resistance.  
  
Submerged in the rising need, drowning in it, Lee opened his eyes with considerable effort. The fire was dancing happily and it illuminated the room. It had been ages since he’d last been up there- he avoided it, because he could never be sure when Kazuya would decide not to let him out again. Everything was the same as he remembered, more of a lair than a bedroom, especially when in lock-down mode. It was hot, golden and red. Frugal and neat, with almost nothing to its name except the massive bed on one side and the fireplace on the other, except… Lee blinked, trying to focus on a carelessly discarded piece of what looked like- what was that? Paper?  
  
Suddenly, he realised and his eyes widened.  
  
It was the book, that book, torn to pieces! The rest of it must have ended up in the fire!  
  
He laughed.  
  
Lost in his lust, Kazuya looked up in surprise.  
  
“What are you laughing at?”  
  
“Did the book not end well, brother?” Lee said smugly.  
  
Kazuya blinked, not understanding at first, but then he saw the remains of the accursed thing still lurking in the corner. His face went red and his eyes narrowed as Lee made no attempt to hide his mirth.  
  
“Come here!” he growled roughly and pulled him fully up onto the bed. “You’ve obviously had enough foreplay if you’re thinking of things other than how hard I am going to fuck you now!”  
  
“Ow!” Lee complained, still laughing as Kazuya settled on top of him and glared down with dark eyes.“What happened? Did the lady run off with the knight?”  
  
Kazuya grinned mirthlessly and pushed into him without warning. Lee cried out from the sudden pain. Kazuya was big, too big to enter him so quickly, regardless of how relaxed and aroused he was. It hurt and tears stung at the corners of his eyes. He would never get used to this; to being held down and fucked, to being so vulnerable and full, forced to trust someone so much larger, stronger than him to know where the line was; where the pleasure stopped and the pain began.  
  
But the thrill of it was overwhelming.  
  
“Do you still feel like laughing?” Kazuya asked, his voice dripping with menace, but Lee found the humour hard to shake after the depressing, exhausting day.  
  
“She did, didn’t she?” he persisted. Obviously she did, and it was hilarious that such a predictable piece of garbage had still caught Kazuya unawares.  
  
Kazuya’s eyes darkened and Lee braced himself, fully aware of what was coming. He pulled out and then pushed back in, impaling him to the hilt. It hurt and Lee gasped; his one hand clawing at Kazuya’s back while the other fisted in the sheets. The satin ripped beneath them and his nails sunk deep- they drew blood and Kazuya roared. He seized his wrists and pinned them down. He bit on his throat and Lee tensed in anticipation of excruciating pain, but Kazuya didn’t break the skin. He suckled at the spot, greedy, wanting, and ran his tongue over the pulse, letting it throb wildly in his mouth. In spite of his threat, his movements remained slow and controlled, almost frustratingly gentle, and Lee wanted to scream again as the pain ebbed and the need slowly overpowered him.  
  
“Kaz…” he gasped over and over again. He wanted to continue the conversation, but found it hard to move past his name. He lifted his head slightly, just enough to kiss his shoulder and to rub his cheek against his face. It was appropriate and endlessly fulfilling.  
  
“Chaolan,” Kazuya said, his voice so quiet, it was almost a whisper.  
  
“Mmm?”  
  
“It was horrible, wasn’t it?”  
  
“What was?” Lee gasped, not following him. It was hard to think through the overload of lust clogging his brain.  
  
“That book,” Kazuya said. “It was a bad book, was it not?”  
  
Lee nearly laughed again, but he didn’t. Kazuya was absolutely serious as he posed this question, and Lee simply knew that mocking him at this moment would be a dire mistake.  
  
“Oh, absolutely!” he said with the utmost conviction and drew up close to kiss him. Kazuya grinned under his lips and Lee felt him relax as if he had suddenly dropped a heavy load. He did not protest even when Lee flipped him and came up on top.  
  
“Is that why you were afraid of me taking that trip?” he asked.  
  
“I wasn’t afraid of you taking the trip,” Kazuya said, running his hands over his thighs.  
  
“No?” Lee said and raised an eyebrow sceptically.  
  
“No,” Kazuya said and pulled him down to kiss him again. “I was afraid you wouldn’t return.”


	7. End

“Everything is ready,” Raven said. “Upon capture, he’ll be sedated and restrained for transport to the clinic. There should be no glitches on the way.”  
  
Lars nodded grimly. “Remember; he is not to be hurt,” he said.  
  
“I don’t understand why you’re so worried about his well-being,” Raven replied. “He is a twisted creature. I hesitate at even calling him a human being because I’m not really sure what he is. He may not be a Mishima by blood, but he is as bad as any of them. He deserves everything he has coming.”  
  
“You promised me he wouldn’t be harmed!” Lars warned, more as a threat than a statement of fact. “The only reason I went along with this is because we agreed he’d be surrendered to my custody!”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Raven reassured him. “He’s of no use to me dead. The tests will work better on a living subject and besides, I need him to lure Kazuya out. The Devil will come for him, I am sure. It’s the best chance we have of neutralising them both. You know this!”  
  
“I do,” Lars said. “But keep in mind your side of the bargain all the same.” His eyes fixed on the runway and he adjusted his com-link. “The plane is landing.”  
  
“Are your men in position?”  
  
“Yes. They’ll go in on my mark. Be prepared.”  
  
 _The plane was landing._  
  
His heart thundered and blood pounded in his ears. Lee was on that plane, finally close, after so many miles. Minutes away, after so much time. What would he be like to him now? Would he still be as beautiful as he had seemed then? Would he still carry the aura of casual grace and elegance trapped by time?  
  
What would he see? What would he think?  
  
Lee, with his charming smile that didn’t touch his sharp, cold eyes. Deep, dark eyes that hid secrets that never passed his lips. Lips that had laughed at him and everything he had to offer and placed a dry, chaste kiss on his cheek before giving themselves over to a monster for him to do unspeakable things to.  
  
 _“You don’t know what you are saying,”_ they had said. _“The path you are headed down doesn’t end well. Go and find yourself a nice boy in a better world and be happy! I am not for you!”_  
  
Would he have changed, after so many years in Kazuya’s bed?  
  
The operation passed in a haze; he gave orders, he moved, he functioned, but there was a buzz in his head and a barrier between him and the real world. What would Lee do when he recognised him, carrying his enemies’ flags?  
  
Would he fight him? Would he lie? Would he beg? Would he want him then?  
  
They secured the exits and flooded the aircraft. The security personnel were the first to fall; shot dead before they could even reach for their weapons. They were caught off guard, unprepared. They’d had no reason to expect an attack.  
  
He lifted his visor and walked through the chaos, searching the mess for the one thing he wanted to see. Where was he? He couldn’t find him. Had somebody got to him first?  
  
With a corner of his eye, he saw Raven at the entrance to the pilot’s cabin, interrogating a cowering man. Through the confusion and the stomping of booted feet, Lars began to realise that something was wrong. With growing dread, he registered that there were only three security guards, lying dead on the red, expensive carpets that had drunk up their blood.  
  
Lee’s escort was much larger and far more alert than that.  
  
“Where is he?” he yelled and frightened eyes of strange people looked at him, bewildered. They were brought forward and lined up for his inspection. Dark hair on them all and no trace of silver anywhere aboard.  
  
Raven came up, scrutinizing the wretched little group with severe disappointment. Three executives of G- Corporation and four members of the crew. The one they were after was not among them.  
  
“We have diplomatic immunity!” one of them tried and his voice shook, spoiling the bold front he was trying to project. “You will regret doing this!”  
  
“Oh, shut up!” Lars snarled and turned to his men. “Tear this plane apart!”  
  
“It’s no use,” Raven said. “He isn’t here.”  
  
“He has to be here!” Lars cried. “He couldn’t have got out!”  
  
“The intel was wrong,” Raven replied. “There seems to have been a last-minute change of plans. Lee never boarded the plane.”  
  
“No!” Lars raged and kicked the debris at his feet. “Goddamn it! No!”  
  
He stalked outside, thwarted, infuriated, and struggled to clear his head in the cold night air.  
  
“We don’t have much time before we are detected,” Ravens calm voice followed him out. “We should pull out and let these people go. They are useless.”  
  
“No,” Lars looked up and his eyes hardened. “We will kill them all.”  
  
“Captain?”  
  
“They have seen my face. Whatever happens here will eventually be reported to Japan. Lee cannot know that I was involved.  
  
Raven stared at him in silence.  
  
“As you wish,” he said at last. “It is your call. After all, it is your conscience on the line.”

***

The bright, annoying music chimed from Lee’s phone and Kazuya groaned.  
  
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he grumbled irritably, finding it difficult to crawl his way up from a deep, satisfying sleep. Bleary eyed, Lee rolled over beside him and reached for the phone.  
  
“Yes?” he said groggily and rubbed the sand from his eyes. Frustrated, annoyed, Kazuya fell back and buried his hands in his hair. Would this never end?  
  
Suddenly, Lee sat up in bed and turned away, his back very straight. A deathly stillness descended upon him.  
  
“What is it?” Kazuya asked, but Lee didn’t answer.  
  
“Yes,” he said into the receiver after a while and his voice was distant, almost disembodied, as if it was coming from a grave. “I heard you.”  
  
Kazuya raised himself up on to his elbows, all sleep gone from him in a second.  
  
“Yes, I understand,” Lee said. “Don’t do anything without me. I will down in fifteen minutes.”  
  
He hung up and the hand holding the phone fell limply to his side.  
  
“What?” Kazuya asked impatiently. “What’s happened?”  
  
Lee remained silent for a moment, his mouth opening but failing to produce a sound. Finally, he turned and when he looked at him, his eyes were haunted and large.  
  
“How did you know?” he asked.  
  
“Know what?”  
  
“The plane…” he began. “The plane that I was supposed to be on was apprehended by an unknown organisation upon landing on a private air-strip in London an hour ago.”  
  
Kazuya shot up to his feet.  
  
“All the passengers and crew are dead. Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for this act.”  
  
Chilled to the core, Kazuya suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe. He’d been right. All along, he had been right and Lee had almost boarded that plane! Dead. All of them, dead. They had been minutes away from disaster.  
  
“I had a feeling,” he murmured, disoriented by the implications of what he had just heard. “Whatever this is, whoever they are, it was you they were after!”  
  
 _He had been right._  
  
Their hard-earned, short-lived peace had come to an end.


End file.
